Practicing habits

Ever do weird things when you practice, or do you have any things that seem to work for you? Let's share our practicing habits.

I like to write melodies for myself where I focus on a particular challenge. It could be sweep picking, it could just be general dexterity, tremoloing across strings (which can be hard to do smoothly), whatever. With tablature software it's easy to transcribe the stuff and follow along at a sane tempo. Programmed drum kits are also awesome. If you pay attention to drumming enough then drum riffs are easy enough to write. I have a few separate files that contain stripped down drum riffs I heard from a Nuclear Assault album, and reproducing grindcore and d-beat patterns is easier than baking cookies.

I also like to play something at a speed beyond which it sounds good. The idea is to sort of force your body to catch up, to make the pace. The same way levels get harder and harder when you play a video game. For instance, I only ever speed train myself in increments of no smaller than 10 bpm. Used to be I could barely trem at 160, but now I can hold my own at about 220...for like a minute. The fact that I can even kind of sweep at all would probably make 16-year-old-me crap his pants with joy.

When it comes to practicing, of course it's going to kill you to sit there and do the same runs over and over again. Distraction always helps. I've thrown on anything from hilariously lame porn to movies that I've seen 30 times. Right now I've been watching the original Star Trek...cause I'm that cool. The important part is that it's fucking mindless. You can even watch the most lowest-common-denominator sitcom with a laugh track kicking in ever 12 seconds. The point is this: when you're training yourself to play, you're training the muscles in your hand more than anything. You don't need to think about it; in fact, you shouldn't think about it. It's your body that has to learn.

Thought this was interesting too. It regards language, which mostly activates different areas of the brain, but learning is learning and stimulus is stimulus, so who knows what it could mean for musical training? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100922171604.htm

Thoughts, contributions, cool web articles? Just give'r!

I thought that part about learning and practicing with some distraction sounded intresting. I always find it hard to just sit down and practice guitar all day so maybe I should try doing it while watching TV or something?

I crack my knuckles and back a lot.

Nihil_ wrote:

I thought that part about learning and practicing with some distraction sounded intresting. I always find it hard to just sit down and practice guitar all day so maybe I should try doing it while watching TV or something?

Yeah. Also, I wouldn't be set on doing it all day, at least at first. You need to be able to take breaks. Like with working out, once you hit a certain point of exertion, the relationship between effort and gain deteriorates.

Also, I've done a lot of reading on sleep and brain health lately and, with learning ANYTHING, proper sleep afterward is vital. Most studies make it pretty clear that if you learn something one day, insufficient rest will impair recollection of that learning the following day. Since a part of muscle memory is also nervous memory, it is tied to the brain (and almost solely a very specific region of the cortex), hence, a good night's sleep after a good day's practice almost ensures skill improvement (even if you don't notice it right away ).

EvilFever wrote:

I crack my knuckles and back a lot.

That sort of shit is good too, especially pre-practice stretches. Again, think exercise. If you don't stretch you're more likely to hurt yourself.

Skip maybe the first three minutes of this, Petrucci demonstrates some pretty decent stretches.



I also have tabs for some finger stretching exercises (on the guitar) that a classical guitar teacher once showed me if y'all are interested.

what is actually harder to play bass or guitar ?

Nihil_ wrote:

I thought that part about learning and practicing with some distraction sounded intresting. I always find it hard to just sit down and practice guitar all day so maybe I should try doing it while watching TV or something?

This.

I got my wisdom teeth out the other day, so I've been doing nothing but watching TV and playing guitar. But what I usually do is cover songs, endlessly. I just go through my iPod for hours and play what I know.